Competition won't hurt you! — Swedish report

Sweden has put in place one of the world’s most complete and radical school choice programmes, and comprehensive research shows it has had positive effects on public schools.

Stockholm’s Research Institute of Industrial Economics (RIIE) examined almost 30,000 students in 34 Swedish municipalities to see what effect the 1992 introduction of vouchers and school choice had on Swedish education.

The study, School Vouchers in Practice: Competition Won't Hurt You! released last year, found that the extent of competition from independent schools, measured as the proportion of students in the municipality at independent schools, improved both the test results and the grades in public schools. The reforms in 1992 meant municipalities had to give funding to independent schools, amounting to 85% of the calculated average cost per student in municipal schools. Parents were also given the right to choose the schools for their children. The reforms had a drastic effect on the number of independent schools. In 1991/92, there were about 90 independent schools at the compulsory level; by 2001/02 there were around 400; and for the academic year 2002/03, the National Agency for Education had received more than 300 new applications, of which around one half could be expected to be successful. The number of independent schools was small compared to the total number of schools (about 5000 in total), and the number of students in independent schools was a small fraction of the total number of students (around 4%), the study showed.

However, this share was rapidly increasing, as the enrolment in independent schools had grown by 10-12% per year in the past few years.

Provided that they fulfilled certain basic requirements, all kinds of schools were eligible, including religious schools and for-profit schools, and the Swedish system applied to all children.

According to the study, there were only two serious limitations to the operation of independent schools. In order to receive public funds, they had to pledge not to charge additional tuition fees, and freedom in setting rules of admission was limited. In particular, independent schools could not refuse to accept low-ability students.

"Sweden has left a system which had virtually no parental influence over school choice and an almost complete dominance of public schools. A voucher system, where parents are allowed to choose any school approved by the National Agency for Education, has been put in its place. A widespread concern among opponents of school choice is that competition will hurt the public schools. The present study shows this fear to be without foundation," the study says.

School Vouchers in Practice: Competition Won't Hurt You! by Fredrik Bergström and F. Michael Sandström, can be downloaded from the RIIE Website.

School choice works! The case of Sweden, a less technical version of the above report, is at the Milton Friedman Foundation.

A Swedish website details the national school system.

The EG West Centre has a web page on the Swedish education industry.